Thursday, October 20, 2016

One of the great pleasures of an
eight-year campaign mostly driven by so-called bottom-up world
building (really like gender more of a fluid spectrum thing) is that
there is a periodic filling in of the blank spots on the map.

I had really intended the War Bear march on Pohansko as a set up for some solo matrix wargaming on my
end, but some of the long time players jumped in with wanting their
characters to march along. I do love every once in a while posing
open-ended grand scenarios in which I have no idea exactly how the
players are going to tackle it or what the outcome will be, so
ka-blamo a simple map and battle roster becomes a whole new campaign
area.

Here are the particulars for you folks
at home:

What's Happening?

Pinc the Petulant, king-let and
spiritual head of the Insufferable Path of Disproportionate Grievance
has imprisoned a company of 20 war-bear cadets in lieu of paying back
wages (and into their woefully underfunded dental fund). The war-bears
sit polearm-deprived and deeply despondent in the dungeons of
Pohansko, a tiny micro-kingdom and fortified trade town in the wilds
south east from the Cantons.

Medved, master of Slumbering Ursine
Dunes and all things bear, has called the general muster for all
warbears. In solidarity (and applied needling from the Guild of
Condotierre, Linkboys, Roustabouts, and Stevedores) the Rada of
Marlinko Canton has sanctioned the formation of a volunteer company
complete with battle-wagon train.

What are the Forces Involved?

Three uncoordinated columns of
war-bears are converging on Pohansko. The columns are all led by
stubborn het-bears and that fact coupled with Medved's utter disdain
for details means that there is no real strategy other than “angrily
march there and fuck shit up.”

The fast-moving Vanguard Column of 90
young war-bears is led by the magnificently gruff and spirited
Commodore (purely an honorific and ironic title) Chlupatý
Hýždě. Second Column of 120 seasoned bears and a small number of
allies is led by the cautious master of dogged defense Ald-Hetbear
Stary Bote and is lagging 1-3 days behind the van. The Third Column
composed of 180 warbears and the bulk of the human allies (and battle
wagons) and of is led by the up and coming star in war-bear soldiery
Snout-Captain Nová Lák and is averaging roughly a week behind the
vanguard.

Stranding against
them are the faux-barbarian war-bands of Pohansko. Exact numbers are
unknown (but likely to run anywhere from 500-1,000 strong) but
well-known to all is their bizarre martial adornment in exaggareted
Bronze-Age-ish war gear (complete with cow-hide shields and engorged,
impractical bronze shoulder pads) and division into doctrinally
-incoherent warrior societies handed down by the first adventurer
king Pohan. Pinc himself is said to have fell arcane powers that can
send even the most placid and content of hruz heads into a snarling
rage over the most wee of issues.

What Are Operational Conditions
Like?

The weather has finally turned autumn
nippy in the southern Hill Cantons. Periodic chilly thunderstorms
roll in from Stormchild's breath over the Persimmon Sea.

The road east past the incestuous
backhills shithole Bad Rajetz is barely a road, more a high place
made up of the shattered backbone of an old stone Hyperborean highway
surrounded by a sea of mud.

The road runs through terrain much akin
to Pohansko proper: craggy rocky ridgelines punctuated by
cedar-breaks and vine brambles (and the occasional old beech and
gnome-pine stand).

What Do We Know about Pohansko?

Well I will tell you all about that
benighted place and its public secrets tomorrow, champ.

But now a song from the solidarizing
citizens of Marlinko

The Wagons of Ursine Emancipation

With the battle wagons, and
greater,Speeds the hairy liberators,Onward cheered by
hosannas,And the waving of yellow banners.Roll it along! Roll
it along!

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

I'm rather enjoying my real world news
mixing with my fantasy world news (you can judge which is which) so
expect this to be a semi-regular post here on the blog.

In things Hydra Cooperative related,
Operation Unfathomable's Kickstarter has been launched and is
trucking along. The first stretch goal is hit which means the Odious
Uplands, an entire already-written book-length wilderness
supplement is a go. Strange Stars OSR is at the proofing stage
and I continue to attempt to push through that last bit of writing of
What Ho, Frog Demons (the fourth and last of the Dunes series).

And Now the News of the Hill
Cantons...

The fact-finding mission of self-styled
Son of Mulmak, advocate of pan-dungeonism, is rumored to have
met fierce resistance in the upper levels of the Mountain Hall of
the Hyperboreans. An anonymous source in the Guild
of Condotierre, Linkboys and Stevedoressays
that the party ran into unexpected new residents calling themselves
the Servants of the Antagonist, Ha-Vul the Great Restocker.

The seemingly interminable election
of the new Overking drags on with the 27 lord-electors continuing
to bicker and maneuver and the powerless majority to debate and riot.
A crowd of bystanders in Marlinko's Tomb-Plaza rescued a local
Worker of Wood member who attempted to gouge out his eyes with an
auger while simultaneously hanging himself on a self-made gibbet. The
man was heard screaming repeatedly “please Sun Lord, just make it
stop!”, an apparent reference to the length of the campaign season.

For the first time since the Green Rye
Uprising, Medved, hirsute divine Master of the Dunes, has
called the muster for all leveled war-bears. Under pretext of
rough behavior, Pinc the Petulant, despicable petty tyrant of
the pocket kingdom of Pohansko, has imprisoned a score of
war-bears in his foulest dungeons allegedly to avoid paying back
wages. Hosts of bearlings have been seen marching east and south
through Marlinko Canton mustard banner unfurled with a new ballad on
their hairy lips.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

The
Hydra Cooperative is about to make another big ole leap forward in
coming weeks. Next Monday, October 10th
the Kickstarter for the one of my favorite (and way too
self-deprecating) creators in this little scene, Jason Sholtis, is
bolting out the gate.

And
yeah, yeah I know, like you, I have seen a thousand crowdfunding
ships launched--many of them floundering still out there years later.
But not only is the extended-dance remix version of Operation Unfathomable in
excellent shape going in (the main manuscript pretty damn clean, a
host of illustrations completed and even the stretch goal material
written and edited), it is also has a damn funny, pitch perfect
Harryhausen-esque stop animation video
that even if you don't pledge you should check out.

[Guerrilla ads
below and above by the world-famous Trey Causey, whose Strange Stars OSR is going through final edits.]

And Now the News from the Hill
Cantons...

The Velveteen Group, operators
of Marlinko's seedy-chic Black Pomegranate bathhouse were reportedly
“going to bring a war without peril [sic] to the streets of the
city” over the opening of an unlicensed, yet contrada-sanctioned
new "grooming facility” in the Sullen Apriarian quarter by an
obscure guild with origins in the Marches of Nur. Said group
spokesman Pan Otkar “This so-called 'facility' with its lack of
hands-on experience year in year out, poises a public health disaster
to our city body. Traditional Marlinko bathhouses have delivered for
centuries on the promise that any on-site pleasures will be mixed
with the proper atmosphere of jaded weariness and sullen
indifference.”

The Beneficial Society of Scavelmen
and Engineers, Social has reportedly been testing campaign
slogans for the Steeplejackers party claim to the Overkingdom throne
on forcibly-detained groups of debt peons, glitter-slyphs and law
students. Sources say that the focus groups have zeroed in on the
catchy, yet opaque slogan of “Superlative Souls are Deplorable”
as the party's new war cry. Fortunately with the electorate set at
only 27 souls -- all of which already have their horses in the race –
the slogan is nuncupatory.

The self-styled Son of Mulmak,
proponent of the heretical theory of pan-dungeonism and best-selling
author of A Brief Relation of the World-Dungeon Unitary, As it Was
Delivered to the Folk of Marlinko is gathering together a field
work expedition for the faux-meadhall haunts of the Mountain Hall of
the Hyperboreans with the explicit goal of “proving that a
subterranean spiderweb ofbyzantine tunnels and
treasure-house sub-basements connects all to All.” Undoubtedly the
all-loving Sun Lord will strike him down and all who follow him in
his hubris.